Purpose: Learn the basics of our shipping rules feature, from what it is to how it works.
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Set up your shipping rules
Go to Settings > Shipping rules. In this overview, all of the created shipping rules are shown in the order that they will be applied in, from top to bottom. From here you can:
- Create a new rule
- Edit or delete existing rules
- Change the rule order.
- Toggle rules to be active or inactive
How do shipping rules work?
Shipping rules work by creating "if this (and this) then that" scenarios that, once set up, will apply to all orders which meet the criteria and automatically change these orders to match the rule created.
For example:
- If weight is less than 10kg, ship with PostNL Standard
- If to country is Germany ship with DPD Home
- If order value is greater than 200 then insure shipment by 200
Shipping rules consist of conditions and subsequent actions. The conditions determine when a rule will be applied to an order. For example, if a shipping rule is created with the condition "weight is less than 10kg" then all orders which have a weight under 10kg will have a shipping rule applied to them. The action is the change that will be made to orders that meet the conditions, e.g., "If weight is less than 10kg, ship with DPD Home".
Shipping rule order
Your smart shipping rules are applied in the order they are listed in the shipping rules overview. The rules are applied from top to bottom, so the rules at the top of the list will be applied first, followed by the next rule. It’s important to carefully choose the order of your smart shipping rules, ensuring that no desired actions will be canceled out by smart shipping rules listed further down in your overview.
For example, see the two rules below:
- If “To Country is Germany” (CONDITION), then “Ship With DPD Home” (ACTION).
- If “To Country is Germany” (CONDITION) AND “Weight is Greater Than 20kg” (CONDITIONS), then Ship With DHL Parcel Connect 15 – 31kg (ACTION)
In this example, you would ideally want to place these rules in the same order as above. This will ensure that the orders that are being shipped to Germany AND are heavier than 20kg will be shipped by the right carrier (DHL Parcel Connect 15 – 31kg).
If you placed the rules the other way round, then the rule containing the weight-related condition would be overwritten. The order would be shipped with DPD Home no matter its weight because both rules include the condition “To Country is Germany”.
Important notes when using a shipping rule to exclude values
To exclude values (e.g. you want to exclude certain countries) in a shipping rule, you will use the "is not" operator in the conditions you add.
If you have added several conditions, it is important that you activate the option "Match all the conditions of this rule".
If you activate "Match any conditions of this rule" instead, and in case at least one of the conditions is met, the rule will be triggered and the action will still be applied. Thus, you would not have succeeded in excluding all the values you wanted to exclude.
Click here to see an example
You have decided to exclude France, Spain and the United Kingdom from your shipments with PostNL Abroad. You prefer to use a different shipping method for those destinations.- You want to ship a parcel to France and you don't want to use PostNL Abroad. All the conditions of this rule match, therefore the action (ship with PostNL Abroad) does not apply and your package won't be shipped with PostNL Abroad.
- In case you wanted to ship the parcel to Poland, for instance, the action of this rule (ship with PostNL Abroad) would apply and the parcel would be shipped with PostNL Abroad.
How to see applied shipping rules
You can easily see which shipping rules have been automatically applied to your order. Either before the label was created (Incoming order overview) or after the label was created (Created labels).
Incoming orders
When you open/edit the order via the pencil icon, you can see the applied Shipping rules under Shipment > Applied shipping rules.
Created labels
You can see the applied Shipping rules by going to the Created labels tab and clicking the eye icon to enter the label details view. The name of the rule that has been applied and the action will be listed.
Related articles
→ Import shipping rules in bulk/CSV file